In a Dry August

About the Book

All the action in this story takes place in four weeks in a very small town in the foothills of Mississippi. It is 1919, a year of momentous change in America as industrialism slowly makes its way from the cities to the small country towns. In Ethel, Mississippi, the men meet each Saturday at Thompson’s Feed and Seed to study, not only which fools are selling their longleaf pines to the lumber mills and buying oil well stock, but also who is keeping his girls in line and who is letting his wife “henpeck” him. In this microcosm of place and time, the newcomer to Old Doc’s practice is surprised to find so many subjects who may need his new studies in psychoanalysis, but the story is not about his initiation. It is a story about power, about the harm done by a man chained to the remnants of pioneer culture. Will Haney is held responsible by the community for the rule of his family and for their behavior. His rule provides “rock and no water,” rule and little nurture.

The earth seems to echo this misrule, reviving an old superstition that the devil, finding the climate of the long drought to his liking, walks the earth, enjoying the destruction of the vegetation and the suffering of animal life. Drifting flights of blue August butterflies are seen hovering over his footsteps.

Thematically, in addition to the effects of change on a small town, the story deals with male domination in its resultant abuse of power, of which incest is the most degrading outcome. This theme is developed through the character of Dulcie and, more poignantly, through the act of a father who confuses the shadow of a dead woman with the reality of a “look-alike” daughter. A shadow of this abuse resides in Rose Pearl’s struggle with a conflict that results in the death of her retarded child. The reader triumphs with other characters and shares amusing accounts of male cronyism and Mississippi politics as Theodore G. Bilbo tries for a second term as governor. And the rains do finally come to settle the dust stirred up by these misadventures and send the devil home.

About the Author

In a Dry August is the author’s first book of fiction, other publications being instructional materials in composition and grammar related to her work. She claims Mississippi as her native country, but has lived in Tennessee and Georgia while learning and/or teaching in colleges there. She retired in 1988 and moved to Richmond, Virginia to be with family again - no longer in Misissippi, but always there, as the first novel suggests.